Imitation

 

1 Thessalonians 2:14-16

Have you ever heard that imitation is the height of flattery?   I was blessed to work for one of the great R & D companies of our time, and its products were often copied as the Patten expired.  Now that kind of flattery is often seen in the drug business, they call it a generic, and in our business it was called a knock-off, or a Me-too product.  And it is not flattery; it is bringing down the value of someone else’s investment in R&D. 

That is not what is happing in verse 14, “For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea.”  It only makes sense that the model that was imitated by the Thessalonian church would be the model of the churches in Judea.  It all began in Jerusalem and it was the persecution of the apostles and the death of Stephen; that very day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem and all but the apostles were scattered through out Judea.   Where did they go and what did they do?  They went to all parts of Judea and they preached the word wherever they went.  We have the account of Philip in Samaria, and in Azotus and in Caesarea, and churches were being started all over Judea.  They all had one thing in common; the religious Jews were making life hell on earth for these new churches. 

These brothers in Thessalonica knew about the persecution that the high priest brought on the churches in Judea, and that same persecution broke out against them from their own countrymen, and yet they were true to the word of God and modeled or imitated those churches in Judea.

What is required to be an imitator, you must know the subject you are going to imitate, and it will require that you study the minute details.  That is why we as the church are called to be imitators of Christ, not copies of some other churches program, but to study to show ourselves approved, workmen who need not be ashamed.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice